ABSTRACT
This chapter analyses the act of infanticide and the infanticidal woman through The Times campaign to amend the 1834 New Poor Law with its Bastardy Clause which had such disastrous consequences for unmarried mothers. It examines court and coronial reports to understand how the newspaper embedded multiple infanticide discourses into its leading articles as part of its strategy to bring about changes to a bad law and expose how in so doing The Times politicized infanticide and the infanticidal woman. An examination of Lord Brougham's parliamentary debate in 1834 exposed the patriarchal positioning on the issue of illegitimacy and how the rules of society positioned and constrained women. Brougham told Parliament that the very bonds of society would be burst asunder if young women were allowed to cast aside their virtue. The political rhetoric embedded into this discourse persuades readers of the professionalism of the medical doctor in opposition to the poor treatment from the nurse.
